I Am Lazarus

First published in 1945

The stories collected under the title I Am Lazarus are a brilliant summation of the war experiences of Anna Kavan in Blitz-era London, working among invalided soldiers at a military neurosis centre in Mill Hill.

Kavan's view of the capital and some of its war victims in this momentous era are typically original and oblique: Lazarus is a patient revived from catatonia who somehow remains institutionalized; the Blitz spirit is coolly stripped of cheeriness and never-say-die in Glorious Boys and Our City; there is a Hitchcockian horror story in The Gannets, while in Who Has Desired The Sea and The Blackout the shell-shocked have ultimately only seen war exacerbate old, long-suppressed psychological wounds.

Chilling but compassionate classics, the I Am Lazarus collection, republished now after many years, are essential documents of the time - and of Anna Kavan.